The task of determining which compiler options to apply in compiling a particular application currently is performed manually by the compiler user. In order for the compiler user to determine which compiler options to apply in a particular situation, the compiler user usually must wade through a daunting set of documentation to find the appropriate set of compiler options to use in order to achieve good performance. While many optimization selections can yield substantial performance improvements under certain circumstances, the same optimizations may cause significant performance degradations or other problems under other circumstances. Therefore, not only is the compiler user confronted with the task of determining which compiler options to apply, if the compiler user does not know everything there is to know about the particular build environment in which the compiler is being used, the compiler options selected by the user may not be the appropriate compiler options to apply under the circumstances.
It would be advantageous to provide the compiler user with a tool which would allow the compiler user to easily determine which compiler options will optimize performance for a particular application. Currently, there apparently are no tools available on the market which assist the compiler user in determining which compiler options should be selected in order to optimize compiler performance. Accordingly, a need exists for a method and apparatus for automatically determining which compiler options should be used which increases compiler usability and raises the level of optimization realized by compiler users while, at the same time, simplifying the performance tuning process for compiler users.